|
Technically D&D 3.0, but that was an online game that consisted of me making a character and playing one session where I didn't roll the dice once or even really talk because apparently it was Husband-Wife Paladin Power Hour and no one told me and my poor barbarian Thag. I decided not to come back after that miserable experience. I count 4E as my first actual RPG. I DMed for a group of my college friends and we had a blast. They wrestled with a scorpion, fought robots and a goblin with a shotgun, crashed an airship. One guy played a wizard who was just MLB pitcher Brian Wilson. We played for maybe six months every few weeks or so, but I hosed up the XP rules and didn't split it between them so they were probably level 16 by that time. Game ended when most of the party (who were basically anarchists) turned on the one "good" member of the team and the climactic fight of the session turned into PvP. The player was okay with it, but after that no one really wanted to get back together. Kinda a bad way to end it, but to this day we all remember the campaign fondly.
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2015 11:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 02:26 |
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:I have sort of an odd question but bear with me for a second. Dunno why they have to be humanoid, but I'll take a stab at it. In several species of animals that have multiple births, the young will sometimes eat each other, so only the strongest of them survive. You could sorta adapt this in a way so that inheritance is merit-based. The children would have to prove themselves to their mother, either through some culturally-constructed method that establishes worth, or alternatively by actually killing their siblings if you're looking for a more sadistic take. Actually, no matter how you slice it, this system would be pretty awful to live in. I guess they could divide their children up into different careers/classes on birth, perhaps in order of emergence/hatching/etc or by some other system. One to the laboring class, another to the priesthood, another to the warriors etc. Bring astrology into it, and perhaps children born under a certain sign are assigned in reverse order or get split up into special classes. Obviously this is a more rigid culture, and the more I think about it the more it reeks of homogenity, but there could be schisms that do things differently, perhaps with different assignments. There's a lot of character potential there in the sense of people who feel they don't fit into their assigned class and leave to pursue a different trade. Or if you wanted something even more out there, alter the idea of inheritance. The siblings are a team, like a pack, and they inherit their parents' stuff collectively. They spend their lives together and work together as part of a larger social group like their village or town. When they pair off with other packs (or who knows? Nothing says they only need 2 people to reproduce, could be more), the two packs they come from contribute resources to the new offspring. If you're willing to think of resources less as "cash/food/goods" and more like "services" this could include intangible things like teaching the new pack trade skills or imparting knowledge of the world/magic/science/folklore etc.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 14:02
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:With a high infant mortality rate I'd assume the foremost qualifier to inherit would be surviving your own birth and infancy to begin with. The children later making attempts at each others' life to improve their own lot would only be a natural extension of that. Such a thing might well be perfectly acceptable in this society, since everyone went through the same thing. I could even imagine there would be a stronger kinship between siblings from different litters - your littermates are competition, your other siblings are fellow survivors deserving of respect. I have this notion that (if we're gonna stick with the idea of widespread economic inequality) that the poorer classes would have to deal more with natural death and early "winners." Whereas the richer classes could afford to feed and raise more of their offspring and the competition becomes a sick spectacle, with the parents mentoring and outfitting their children to better kill each other and prove their "worth" through ritual combat. Or in a more anarchic version, assassinations and public killings would be the order of the day. Maybe you do it as loud and bloodily as possible to instill fear in your siblings, who could opt out by giving up their claim to the inheritance or accepting ostracism from society. Or maybe murdering your siblings is illegal and the whole point of the affair is to off them in the most subtle and deniable manner, and evading conviction by law enforcement is what really proves your worth.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 14:31
|
|
|
RPZip posted:I think this sidesteps the problem, because it doesn't really make sense for what happens in the generation afterwards. There's parents, they have six kids, those six kids jointly inherit a mill. But then what happens when those six kids want to have kids? Do you end up with 36 kids who will inherit the mill the generation after that? Does only one of the six get to have kids, and the rest of the siblings aren't permitted to/have to leave and give up their inhereitance in order to do so? That would be one way to make the society stable without introducing an absolutely staggering mortality rate, at least. Maybe it takes more than a binary pair to produce 6 children? Could take 3, could take the whole 6. Instead of 36 kids you wind up with 1 litter of 6 to replace the original 6 or more realistically you do it twice and wind up with 12, to ensure a reasonable rate of expansion. Or there are other things, like maybe a set number of offspring are always sterile or there is a low rate of conception. Childhood mortality via disease or other factors could account for fewer making it to adulthood. The idea of a species that gives birth to 6 offspring at a time but only 2 are fertile is pretty cool.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2015 20:21
|
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:When putting together a fantasy setting, I would imagine it is natural to take inspiration from the dazzling amount of cultures that populated Earth at some point or another. I'm currently working on a post-World War 1 setting centered around the League of Nations, and you'd be surprised how much information you can find on the Internet just by searching around. Lots of books from the 90s and before are available for free, though often they're in just plain text so they can be a pain to read. I often start with a Google search or get on Wikipedia and consult the sources they cite, which can then lead to similar books/articles that are usually pretty helpful. I also recommend going through a local university's directory and seeing if there are any professors who specialize in that field of history. I found an Africana professor who was able to recommend me some books on the Zulu, and all I did was send her an email asking for any advice. Keep it short and simple and I find they're usually happy to help. See if there are any courses being taught on the subject and ask the professor for book recommendations or if you have specific questions they're usually okay with giving an answer.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2015 13:05
|
|